Nebraska man’s app for literacy makes semifinals for national grand prize
App aims to motivate kids to write in AI era
LOUISVILLE, Neb. (WOWT) - Louisville native Adam Sparks launched the web-based app Short Answer last year.
His goal is to get kids enthusiastic about feedback on their writing skills rather than just the grade they get.
“As a teacher, I was just incredibly frustrated with me spending my Sundays giving kids feedback on their writing, coming in on Monday, handing them the feedback, having them ignore all of it, look at their grade, and move on,” Sparks said.
How does it work? Sparks said teachers type in questions or writing prompts and push them out to the class.
“Students write responses, and once the teacher has all of them, they will then push those responses back to the class, where students will provide gamified feedback to each other.”
Sparks said it creates an authentic audience for students.
“They know that what they’re writing, what they’re creating, is going to be immediately shared with the people that they arguable care most about, which is their classmates.”
He told 6 News the app is moving more toward getting kids to want to write in an era where they could easily use AI to do it for them instead.
“The challenges posed by AI are serious, and I’m worried about what it might mean for student literacy.”
Sparks said the app already allows teachers to turn the copy and paste ability on or off. Later this fall, they’ll add the ability for teachers to see what percentage of a student’s answer has been copied and pasted.
Short Answer is now a semifinalist for the Yass Prize for education organizations.
The foundation says Sparks’ app has more than 30,000 users each month across all 50 states and eight countries.
Just by being a semifinalist, Sparks is automatically receiving $200,000. He said he’ll use it to help expand the app’s capabilities to better serve teachers.
“We can continue to hone and craft our tool, and hopefully progress through the competition and become the grand prize winner.”
The Yass Prize organization will announce the $1 million grand prize winner in Nov. 7.
Right now, the Short Answer app is only available for desktops and laptops. Sparks said they will eventually make a phone app.
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